Our Father - Matthew 6:9 Series

Matthew 6:5-15 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Introduction: The value of prayer

Every once in a while when you listen to a sermon there are those lines that just seem to reach out and grab you by the lapel and captivate your attention. You are drifting off in some distraction, but then something is said that makes your whole heart and soul sit up and say, “Whoa – I’ve got to hear this.” Jesus has one of those lines right around the middle point of the Sermon on the Mount. It comes in verse 9 of chapter 6, where Jesus says, This, then, is how you should pray… If the Lord Jesus Christ saying, “Hey, I’m about to teach you how to pray” doesn’t grab your attention, I don’t know what would.

Prayer is one of the most astonishing of all God’s gifts to us. The almighty, eternal, Creator God comes into the sea of humanity and to a few, select people He gives out His personal phone number – a direct line to God. And He promises - any time that line rings – He will always pick up. The awesome privilege of just being able to communicate with the Almighty makes prayer valuable beyond comprehension. But that is not the only benefit of prayer. Prayer brings us every kind of richness. And we have so many reasons to pray. We pray to prepare ourselves to receive blessing from our Father. He is always ready to give, but we are not always ready to receive, so prayer can unclog and widen the channels through which God desires to pour out His grace. We pray to alert ourselves to the nearness of God. We pray to awaken our souls to seek after Him. We pray to exercise our faith in His promises. We pray to unburden our hearts as we cast our cares on Him. We pray to show Him as our great Provider and Father and King. We pray to both increase our good appetites and satisfy them. We pray to be the tools God uses to bring about His perfect plan and glorious purposes. We pray for one another to express our love. We pray to be calmed when we are upset, strengthened when we are weak, guided when we are lost, enlightened when we are confused, emboldened when we are cowardly, motivated when we are apathetic, rescued when we are in trouble, loved when we are rejected, befriended when we are lonely, refreshed when we are dry, filled when we are empty, forgiven when we sin.

We pray to uncap the overflowing joy of worship in our hearts. It is impossible to put into words the value of prayer, and yet so many things hinder us from it. Unlimited blessing is there every day for the taking and yet we pass so much of it up because of the things that hinder our prayers. So when the Son of God stands on a hillside and gets to the middle of a sermon and says, “This, then, is how you should pray…” He has got our attention.

A framework for prayer

We have been studying verse-by-verse through the Sermon on the Mount and we come this morning to the Lord’s Prayer. But before we dive in to the content of the prayer we need to understand how Jesus intended for us to take this. When Jesus said, "This, then, is how you should pray” does that mean this is a prayer to be recited, or a pattern to be followed? And if it is a pattern, what is it about the pattern that we are to follow? The topics? The order? The length? In what sense is this prayer exemplary for us?